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I've read an article in the past about the 2 types of developers: openers and closers. I can't remember the exact link, but this distinction is weighing on my mind lately.

In my mind these are roles, not developer types. A developer might be filling either role, depending on the circumstances.

Openers

The openers are the developers that are on the front line, taking feature requests from managers and customers, and turning them into real applications that can be interacted with. The openers are free to use whatever means necessary to get the job done. They aren't concerned with performance or scalability. Their job is to make the app work.

Closers

Once the app features solidify, the closers are the ones who fix the performance and scalability issues. They care deeply about runtime performance, about efficient algorithms, about profiling tools, memory allocation, all all the deep technical issues. While all developers are typically nerds, the closes are typically the uber-ner…